Phreak talks damage creep

BALDG1VEN BOOMER·Dec 21, 2017·11 votes·1,765 views

Skip to the last 30 secs if you want a TL;DW

36 Comments

Void Baboon RFDec 21, 201722 votes

Phreak is literally never right when it comes to theorycrafting. I still remember last season when he tried to talk about runes and it was the biggest noob trap dumpster fire I've ever seen on the front page of reddit. This is what's wrong with the game.

The total lack of MR early game is disgusting and has completely removed the little counterplay there was vs early poke AND burst mid (contrary to meddler's beliefs, the strongest mid lane champions are incredibly consistent with their ability to stat check you with abilities) and has completely warped the trading patterns bot in practically all match ups and top vs tanks (as in, you can't trade with them at all).
Tanks are the sole class to have taken the opposite extreme and now take almost no damage early game because of their insane armor, especially with stupid as fuck bullshit like aftershock, but because of the total lack of MR, they completely destroy everyone else on their own on top of this
Finishing duskblade means you can kill any squishy by just touching them and it's sadly not even hyperbole. This problem is compounded by the fact that they took the unhealthiest route they possibly could've with TLD. Instead of giving you a bit of bonus damage per trade, it now gives you an entire abilities worth of damage per rotation (this scales to a bonus ults worth of damage later on) with the incredibly naive and quite frankly lazy notion that it will balance itself out because there should be a difference between the 2. That's the thing Riot games, in practice there's almost no difference between the 2 and it's mind boggling you don't know this about your own game. Almost everyone who could proc TLD before can proc electrocute now doing the exact same thing, except now you take literally 5 times the damage. The added ~20 second cooldown turns out to be meaningless because the 2 biggest users of electrocute, assassins and junglers, are always looking to make every trade lethal.
Sudden impact gives 10 lethality and an especially egregious 8 mpen when no even has the option to start armor and mr. Honestly wtf were they thinking with half of the new masteries that just give bonus damage for doing nothing. Garbage like sudden impact doesn't promote new styles of gameplay Riot. It just gives Katarina 25% more damage when she inevitably rolls her face at you at 2. This. Is. Not. Healthy. For. The. Fucking. Game. You don't all of a sudden just give champions that have been balanced for 7 fucking seasons around certain damage values double the damage just cause. That's fucking stupid and it's precisely what you got wrong with the first iteration of keystones and you've learned absolutely nothing with these new masteries. Why do you even need to be told this.

I'm not going to do the math for Riot, they don't even need to do it themselves. Just fucking open your client and start a game of league. I honestly don't know how you can even pretend the games in a healthy state if you play more than 1 game a month. Even in the last season, where masteries (cause they're not runes, they're masteries) gave a third of the damage, the lowest MR almost anyone started was 34 (because you'd run 6 CDR blues mid). You don't even have that now. Everyone starts with 30. If you played mid even once in your league life you know exactly what happens when you start with 30 MR. You get touched? You lose 50% of your HP. But now everyone starts 30 MR, oh and masteries give three times as much damage as they've ever done before.

bañDec 21, 20175 votes

fucking this

DarkeusDec 21, 20172 votes

Yeah I don't know why people downvoted you. Phreak has consistently shown to not know a THING when it comes to Theory Crafting. Sometimes I wonder who the hell thinks he knows what he is talking about??

GayFluffyUnicornDec 21, 20175 votes

First comment i have to 100% agree with in this thread. All i needed from phreak to hear to never value his opinion on the game again is him trying to justify the bullshit that ornn, mao and cho are right now with "well winrate yadda yadda team comps blah so they are balanced". Well except for the fact that maokai literally rightclicks EVERYONE to death in toplane who is not a tank while chain ccing you, having cheap items and scale better than anyone else. Same for cho and ornn but ornn more his one spam ability that is way too overpowered in numbers+grasp.

Eight RocksDec 21, 20173 votes

[{quoted}](name=Void Baboon RF,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=401mwoEv,comment-id=0002,timestamp=2017-12-21T17:56:32.008+0000)

Phreak is literally never right when it comes to theorycrafting. I still remember last season when he tried to talk about runes and it was the biggest noob trap dumpster fire I've ever seen on the front page of reddit. This is what's wrong with the game.

The total lack of MR early game is disgusting and has completely removed the little counterplay there was vs early poke AND burst mid (contrary to meddler's beliefs, the strongest mid lane champions are incredibly consistent with their ability to stat check you with abilities) and has completely warped the trading patterns bot in practically all match ups and top vs tanks (as in, you can't trade with them at all).

Tanks are the sole class to have taken the opposite extreme and now take almost no damage early game because of their insane armor, especially with stupid as fuck bullshit like aftershock, but because of the total lack of MR, they completely destroy everyone else on their own on top of this

Finishing duskblade means you can kill any squishy by just touching them, this problem is compounded by the fact they they took the unhealthiest root they possibly could've with TLD. Instead of giving you a bit of bonus damage per rotation, it now gives you an entire abilities worth of damage per rotation (this scales to a bonus ults worth of damage later on).

Sudden impact gives 10 lethality and an especially egregious 8 mpen when no even has the option to start armor and mr. Honestly wtf were they thinking with half of the new masteries that just give bonus damage for doing nothing. Garbage like sudden impact doesn't promote new styles of gameplay Riot. It just gives Katarina 25% more damage when she inevitably rolls her face at you at 2. This. Is. Not. Healthy. For. The. Fucking. Game. You don't all of a sudden just give champions that have been balanced for 7 fucking seasons around certain damage values double the damage just cause. That's fucking stupid and it's precisely what you got wrong with the first iteration of keystones and you've learned absolutely nothing with these new masteries. Why do you even need to be told this.

I'm not going to do the math for Riot, they don't even need to do it themselves. Just fucking open your client and start a game of league. I honestly don't know how you can even pretend the games in a healthy state if you play more than 1 game a month. Even in the last season, where masteries (cause they're not runes, they're masteries) gave a third of the damage, the lowest MR almost anyone started was 34 (because you'd run 6 CDR blues mid). You don't even have that now. Everyone starts with 30. If you played mid even once in your league life you know exactly what happens when you start with 30 MR. You get touched? You lose 50% of your HP. But now everyone starts 30 MR, oh and masteries give three times as much damage as they've ever done before.

This is literally the smartest post I have seen on LoL official forums

FCJAAAAGOOOODec 21, 201711 votes

I'm gonna go out on a limb here and say nobody at Riot's gonna talk about physical ranged damage creep.

k wìxDec 21, 20179 votes

He's technically right, and a lot of the 'damage is crazy / snowball meta' stuff is bullshit, in my opinion. However... Here's a few counterpoints to his video:

1.) He never really addresses the new damage from Sorcery and Domination Trees, which is absolutely ABSURD. Aery, Comet, Predator, Scorch, Eyeball Collector, ect ect. All of these things can be nuts for early game damage. And they all SCALE better than anything league has ever seen. Not that I think it's a bad thing, I actually think late game scaling is relatively healthy currently. But still,** you can't begin to address how damage feels right now without talking about these items.**

2.) I feel like it's early game that's problematic, where players simply don't have good, easy access to MR out of the gate. The players who get that early advantage turn it into a midgame advantage, and so on and so forth. That's why players FEEL like the game is more snowbally.

Whisper87Dec 21, 20171 votes

I also think that most of the burst and snowball complaints are geared towards champs like Maokai or supports who do magic damage but don't BUILD magic damage. They aren't complaining about a Malzahar E doing half their HP, they are complaining because Sona clocked them for 1/3 of their health in one combo or Maokai came up and did 1/4 their HP in one Q. So without taking even looking at keystones, those champs ARE doing more damage in most cases, BEFORE KEYSTONES! So add Aeri and or Aftershock or Grasp onto that.

The other thing which Phreak did say is that the Keystone has to do a lot of the heavy lifting. And it is. I mean if your Malz goes Sorcery primary, then he takes Scorch, which is already doing as much as Deathfire used to, then you add Arcane Comet or Aeri on top of that!? Then if he goes for free boots in Inspiration he gets to his damage 300g earlier?

Then the third element is that Lethality builders are taking over games I play in. So I need to see a video on lethality damage builders' damage compared to last season. My hunch is they are doing more now.

Final element is the removal of catch up xp from kills. This is fairly straight forward. Back in the day if you were behind in levels and you managed to kill someone on the enemy team who was like highest or second highest in the game, it would often give you a massive boost to xp resulting in an instant or very expedient level up. So the leads just stick more now. This is more of the snowball than the damage argument, but it could contribute to "feeling" like the guy that is ahead is dealing more damage.

Based on what I'm seeing in this video, basic calculations off Runes, and looking at the "extras", here's what I conclude:

Mages, auto attacking ADC's, and AD bruisers/juggers MAY be doing roughly the same damage as before, but EVERYONE ELSE is doing noticeably more damage (Possibly auto attackers and Mages are even doing a touch more damage because of keystones). For the majority of the game anyway, with outliers being things like lvl 1 trades and Gathering storm in a 50 minute game. But the kicker is that the runes provide snowball windows everywhere even if base damages are not higher. Clepto gives money and possible temporary stat buffs, Domination is riddled with situational damage buffs, Gathering storm, randomly getting to cast a spell with mana refunded, getting 10% cdr for free, reduced ult cooldowns, free boots and stopwatch from your SECONDARY path. I could go on, but I just want to end by saying the keystones and everything you get further down the tree and your secondary tree is a bit much in terms of value.

In my humble mid-platinum opinion, lets get rid of Keystones all together. Then separate all the remaining runes into two categories DAMAGE and UTILITY/DEFENSE. You get to choose three in each. Enjoy.

LankPantsDec 22, 20176 votes

The first thing I noticed about this is that Phreak started on a false premise, that damage was fine in S7.

Spank the FoxDec 22, 20173 votes

{quoted}

The first thing I noticed about this is that Phreak started on a false premise, that damage was fine in S7.

He also said damage was fine in S6 xd

ElkingtonDec 21, 20173 votes

It's less in-game defense being an issue rather than more damage, which is evident when you're trying to play a champion that depends on defensive itemization, but has little to no %based defensive scaling/reduction in their kit, like most bruisers not named Garen or Gragas. Also, as was mentioned, early resistances are extremely low, which significantly increases the chances of getting snowballed on by bursty champions that thrive on early leads. The main counter to this as a bruiser is to stack resistances and HP early on, while saving the damage items for later (especially since most bruiser items are crazy expensive atm). I expect bruiser players will start rushing Sunfire into Spirit Visage more often in the near future.

RalanrDec 21, 20175 votes

The problem is that most bruiser players (or at least most complainers) do not want to rush a defense item to deny their spike.

Too many times have I seen people try to rush triforce in a lane they are losing hard.

ElkingtonDec 21, 20173 votes

Forgive those people, for they know not what they do. However, I can kind of understand a Jax or Irelia player doing it as their build-paths aren't the most flexible.

Grasp currently offers enough early-mid damage for most bruisers to rush Bami's Cinder into Sunfire or Visage without making any real sacrifices. When preseason started, I stopped building Tiamat into Titanic in favor of the above, as it is a much safer start. Most games are over before I can even complete a bruiser item, they're just too expensive.

AirKingNeoDec 21, 20175 votes

Because if they go defensive they give up the lane entirely and lose it. Going damage gives them a chance to do something.

RalanrDec 21, 20172 votes

Honestly this is why I think fighters and top lane in general need a complete overhaul. For a literal 1v1 lane that isn’t meant to roam as often as mid, Being so easy to fall behind in and thus getting stuck with a laning phase of standing close enough for exp while your ahead enemy freezes lane doesn’t sound fun.

SpiritOfOdysseusDec 21, 20172 votes

{quoted}

Honestly this is why I think fighters and top lane in general need a complete overhaul. For a literal 1v1 lane that isn’t meant to roam as often as mid, Being so easy to fall behind in and thus getting stuck with a laning phase of standing close enough for exp while your ahead enemy freezes lane doesn’t sound fun.

it doesn't "sound" like fun? Bro, it isn't fun.. Especially for a top laner that has preferred fighters like Olaf since League began. Youre pooped on by teemo, by tanks (who youre actually supposed to counter... hmm), by whatever that jayce cancer cell is, and anyone who builds gw

RalanrDec 21, 20171 votes

No I mean in general, not the current meta.

PennsDec 21, 20171 votes

If your enemy freezes you could roam tho, mid isnt that far away and most top laners have good cc [leblanc-funny]

RalanrDec 21, 20172 votes

Roaming in one direction though. At least mid can roam top or bot.

PennsDec 21, 20171 votes

Ye but at the same time, you get to either play a tank or a bruiser like Irelia or Jax that is mostly unbeatable 1v1. What sounds even less fun to me is a lane where getting ahead barely matters because people once complained that you fall behind too fast.

Spank the FoxDec 21, 20171 votes

{quoted}

Because if they go defensive they give up the lane entirely and lose it. Going damage gives them a chance to do something.

Because an extra 25AD from something like Pickaxe is exactly what you need even though you can’t use it because oops you died again.

Wanna know the secret to tanks doing so well right now - combination of % HP damage but also the ability to get off more than one rotation of abilities - hell, they can probably rotate through them 3 in a mid-game fight. Bruisers, despite lacking % HP damage, can actually function in similar manner. Build defensively, your base damages are there for a reason. Two instances of 220 odd damage is generally better than one instance of 245 damage.

GayFluffyUnicornDec 21, 20172 votes

Except barely anyone has base dmgs lmao. Only ones being juggernauts really.

Spank the FoxDec 21, 20171 votes

{quoted}

Except barely anyone has base dmgs lmao. Only ones being juggernauts really.

Lmao?

DragonSheaDec 21, 20171 votes

{quoted}

The problem is that most bruiser players (or at least most complainers) do not want to rush a defense item to deny their spike.

Too many times have I seen people try to rush triforce in a lane they are losing hard.

Bro there is a delicate balance. To be honest I like to get boots, item 1029 or item 1033 so I can decide if I need a item 3047 or item 3111 . That way I have some resistances I can build out of later in the game if I get but need and vice versa.

GayFluffyUnicornDec 21, 20172 votes

I wonder why "complainers" refuse to delay the most expensive items in the game on champs who get outscaled anyways by everyone else :thinking:

Besides melee fighter should have better defensives to begin with to compensate for the fact that they are idk melee maybe? And what defense items can bruisers actually build? Tank items? If i need to build that early game why even play a fighter who NEEDS to win laning phase? Then i can just pick a tank from the beginning and sit back and be useful anyways.

So yes, i'd rather go dmg and atleast blow their mage,assassin, adc up and be useful in one way.

RalanrDec 21, 20172 votes

You’ll probably die before you get close. That’s the problem. You’re not useful then. Building durable actually makes you useful as a frontliner.

HópeDec 22, 20172 votes

My problem with league right now is Supports are out soloing adcs in bot lane way more frequently than before, Tanks are out-trading bruisers and fighters early, Junglers have too much presence.

Tychusfindlay918Dec 21, 20173 votes

honestly when I think of absurd damage I think of the AD spectrum, not the AP, and particularly ADCs in general doing more damage than in previous seasons (minus maybe ardent meta where their damage was probably at a peak).

Also, misleading title, phreak fails to adress damage as a whole in the game, he only focuses on one specific subtopic within damage.

ADC5LUTDec 21, 20172 votes

I can't really think of any AP champs that are running the game like AD champs and tanks do. Sooo thanks for clearing this up?

GayFluffyUnicornDec 21, 20172 votes

Eve, xerath, lb, ori, kata, malz, vlad to name a few.

Attticus FinchDec 22, 20171 votes

Is this the part where you insist that your anecdotes are worth more then statistics? 'cause I see quite a few champs in that list who are underperforming by almost every metric.

PopcornBunniDec 22, 20171 votes

[{quoted}](name=Attticus Finch,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=401mwoEv,comment-id=000300000000,timestamp=2017-12-22T09:11:01.766+0000)

Is this the part where you insist that your anecdotes are worth more then statistics? 'cause I see quite a few champs in that list who are underperforming by almost every metric.

Interesting point, because tanks are underperfoming fighters in every role except support. Not just because there are less total tanks than fighters, but proportionally to the number of tanks and fighters going into Top and jungle, more tanks are in the bottom half of those roles than the top, and more fighters are in the top half in perfomance.

Yet anecdotally, people complain about a 47% winrate Ornn as if he's the most broken thing since stacking black cleavers

ADC5LUTDec 22, 20171 votes

I'll concede Eve, Xerath and Vlad, sure. Now list how many ads / tanks run the game in comparison.

PopcornBunniDec 25, 20172 votes

{quoted}

I'll concede Eve, Xerath and Vlad, sure. Now list how many ads / tanks run the game in comparison.

Rammus , Sion , and uhhhhh oh Leona

Yeah those are the only tanks perfoming consistantly above 50% right now.

lolipopevelynnDec 22, 20171 votes

some squishy champions start the game with 20-30 MR. this is why i rush haunting guise/sorc boots on eve and most other AP champs now. literally penetrates all of their MR if you take sudden impact.